Tag: NASA
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Probe hoisted aboard launcher to leave Earth next week on asteroid adventure
File photo of Atlas payload lift and mate. Credit: United Launch Alliance CAPE CANAVERAL — NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft today moved a step closer to starting a voyage to explore an uncharted world in our solar system — the mountain-sized Asteroid Bennu — by joining the booster rocket that will propel it from Earth next week.…
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Atlas 5 rocket rehearses countdown for upcoming launch to Asteroid Bennu
The venting Atlas 5 during today’s WDR. Credit: NASA-KSC/Kim Shiflett CAPE CANAVERAL — Running through a practice countdown to check systems before launching a NASA sample-return probe to Asteroid Bennu in exactly two weeks, an Atlas 5 successfully completed its Wet Dress Rehearsal today. The United Launch Alliance rocket will propel the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on…
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Photos: Atlas 5 rocket assembled for launch of asteroid sample return probe
At Cape Canaveral’s Vertical Integration Facility, adjacent to the Complex 41 launch pad, workers with United Launch Alliance stacked the Atlas 5 rocket that will propel NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on its voyage to Asteroid Bennu. On Monday, Aug. 8, the first stage was erected onto the mobile launch platform parked inside the assembly building. A…
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NASA ‘hears’ from lost spacecraft after nearly two years
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION Credit: NASA NASA re-established contact with a wayward sun-watching science satellite Sunday nearly two years after the spacecraft suddenly dropped off line during a test, the agency said in a statement Monday. NASA’s Deep Space Network, or DSN, “established a lock on the STEREO-B (spacecraft’s) downlink carrier at…
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Sophisticated new U.S. weather observatory being readied for launch
The GOES R weather satellite folded up for launch. Credit: Lockheed Martin CAPE CANAVERAL — On the cusp of advancing U.S. weather forecasting, a powerful new satellite was shipped from its Denver factory to the Cape today in preparation for launch in November. The first-of-its-kind observatory dubbed GOES R was flown aboard an Air Force…
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Video: Preview of the OSIRIS-REx mission to sample an asteroid
Watch the pre-flight news conference that introduces NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket on Sept. 8. The mission will reach Asteroid Bennu in 2018, capture a sample of the celestial body in 2020 and bring the specimen back to Earth in a special landing…
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Photos: Solar arrays attached to asteroid-bound OSIRIS-REx spacecraft
At NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, workers have finished the pre-launch assembly and fueling of OSIRIS-REx for the asteroid sample return spacecraft for liftoff Sept. 8. The probe will launch atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket en route to Asteroid Bennu to capture a specimen for return to Earth. Inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing…
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From haven to hell: NASA climate models suggest Venus may have been habitable
A land-ocean pattern like the one shown in this artist’s conception was used in a climate model to show how storm clouds could have shielded ancient Venus from strong sunlight. (Credit: NASA) Today Venus is a hellish planet with a crushingly dense atmosphere of carbon dioxide, but billions of years ago, it could have had…
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Buildup of unusual launcher begins for NASA’s asteroid sample return mission
File photo of first Atlas 5-411 launch in 2006 with ASTRA 1KR satellite. Credit: Pat Corkery/Lockheed Martin CAPE CANAVERAL — It is a rocket like no other, a vehicle with a single solid-fuel booster mounted to its side, that will launch NASA’s OSIRIS-REx probe next month to bring back a sample of Asteroid Bennu. The…
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NASA books nuclear-certified Atlas 5 rocket for Mars 2020 rover launch
An Atlas 5-541 rocket, like this one, will launch the Mars 2020 rover. Credit: Pat Corkery/United Launch Alliance CAPE CANAVERAL — America’s next Mars rover, a $2.1 billion nuclear-powered vehicle to search for evidence that life once existed there, will be launched to the Red Planet in the summer of 2020 by a powerful Atlas…